Hollow
by Arford
Summary: The overbearing emptiness one faces when faced with the reality of finality. Some self-inflection and thoughts. Not much. Complete for now, may add.


I don't remember much of my life. I can't recall what it was like very well. Living seems more distant than I'd like to remember. It's all just a haze. Fuzzy at best. Suppose you could call it weird. Funny, maybe. But I'm just me and… well, I don't remember what that really means. There are too many things floating around my mind. Too many thoughts. Memories. But they hurt. And they seem so far. It just seems like it's all so pointless. All those flashes… pictures keep floating through this endless stream. Drifting by, like clouds in this blackened sky. Whichever term you prefer. But I guess that's also inconsequential now. Now. Now…

I am… Different now. I don't feel all the things I used to feel. I don't need all the things I used to need. I just don't. But I do remember what this one feeling is called – the one feeling that never leaves – hungry. It sounds funny, doesn't it? It sounds ludicrous. But I don't blame you. How can I? Even I don't know what to make of it. But I don't care. I just feel it. So I sate it.

I honestly cannot tell when the desire settled in. It… it probably wasn't long after I died. Or it could have been. I don't recall being a wandering soul for too long. The light never seemed to shine. I just remember a yell and a scream. Tears and people over my body. Then darkness flickered over my eyes. After that… well, after that, I just woke and knew nothing but confusion and thirst. All in all, I guess the consequences of time before I became what I have become now matters little, if at all. Nothing ever happened when I first changes, so what is to say anything else marks a difference?

Things weren't easy I guess. Not for me at first. I didn't know what to do with myself and yet at the same time, I knew. I just knew I had one goal. And I knew how to satisfy it. To grab my chance. And so I did. I didn't have any other choice. I just saw bounties abundant and it overcame me. I didn't even understand what was happening at first. There were howls of all sorts and pitches, but in the end, when I snapped out of any trance, everyone else was silent. Their bodies littered the world as their reiatsu crumbled to nothingness.

You seem to be afraid of me and you seem to disbelieve anything I can say. But just look. I'll say it again. When I woke up after my death was strange. But I came to accept it. All I truly remember, with vivid memory, is the hunger. Overwhelming hunger. Then the pain. Then more hunger. Cue pain, followed by thirst. Then there was the wanting; oh, how much I wanted. The lust seemed to lie in my soul, accompanied by an unforgiving need. And when I felt _them_, I felt envy. The cravings followed; I knew I had to continue, so I hastened to eat again.

Slowly, the starvation sank away, after I ate enough. It all began to crumble and I could think again. Well, think like I am now. I learned much later that it wasn't unusual for Hollows to be so confused. Often times, they don't make it past the initial stages of even transforming. I was told that it was strange. More souls broke down before they could even take their first meal; others were devoured in the middle of their rebirthing process. Luck, I was told, was a field of skill I was rather adept in.

They told me that I couldn't become lax though. Because a Hollow who never eats is truly that. Hollow. A shell. A little bit of soul who would fall to become dust in the winds of Las Noches. They told me to never be satisfied with my meals. So I wasn't. When I took of my bites, I felt the hunger subside, but it fled as quickly as it became reaffirmed. It took over a bit at times and I knew that they were right. I could never have what I wanted. Complacency. Contentedness. I know; that is the oddest thing to come from the lips of a Hollow, but I think it to be my truest want.

I've been scolded, mocked, and threatened because of it. The ones around me always laugh when I mention it. They then request to eat me, which I could never grant, for by the time they open their lips, I have already begun to finish my meal. And whenever they simply retaliated instead, they soon found their consciousness fading to become a fraction of my own. I remembered a bit of my humanity when I sought complacency, for I recall that people are never such as well, which led me to wonder: are humans so different from us? After all, Seireitei cries out and lashes against us who feed on men, but I have seen men feast on one another as well. So why is it so different?

Sometimes, I wonder if there is a good and a bad. I can't tell. When I hesitate to feed, I wonder if it is sympathy, compassion, or pity; but then I forget them and eat anyway. Still, I wonder if those feelings are anything we Hollows could consider "good" to commit to. Then again, I don't suppose I can tell the difference anyway. But maybe he did. I didn't know though. I don't think I ever will.

I don't know if there's a "right" way or a "wrong" way anymore… but I guess there's still "my" way. I'm so confused. I don't really know what I can do or what I can't. I want to know, though, what my walls are. I've been told that Hollows have a limit they can't surpass. But I don't know how true that can be; we're a clan of liars and thieves, an existence I thought was impossible.

I'm really not sure where my "heaven" is since I've only seen this place. I doubt it's even hell. I wouldn't know if it was, though. I just figured that it'd hurt more than being hungry… though I suppose being lonely makes up for it.

My days aren't numbered and neither is the mountain I see in my dreams. All I see and taste is death. Bodies here and there. Hunger, waiting to be satisfied. I don't know what the end is. And that kinda scares me. Just a tad. It's not really worrisome. It just makes me curious. I wonder if there even is an end.

I've been told that there are dreams, though. Or rather, a dream. I've been told there's an "end" for all Hollows, a goal they want to meet. They always cry out their dreams and desires as they die - I've heard that's what people do too; I wonder if I did that before I died? - and they often utter profanities in rage or resignation. I think too many of them have died before finding that goal. Or their dream.

I don't know why so many of us keep looking towards that dream. That end. It's somewhat unnerving in the sense that once you get there, you've nothing left to get, right? You've gotten past the final block, made it across whatever line was in front of you. Then all you can do is look down and look back. But to what?

What do we have? What did we have? What did we do? At the end, where would a Hollow be? What would I see? I'm honestly so confused.

There's too much to fear, but I don't really know why. What have we left to lose? How do we even know if we're ourselves? Or whatever self we want to be? I don't remember what I was like before I died. And I guess it doesn't even matter anymore.

I guess the only thing I want is to stop being so hungry.

And maybe, just maybe, find out why I'm me.


End file.
